South & Central America
Highlights - Essential Info - Itineraries - History
Originally inhabited by Ciboney and Arawak Indians, Cuba was colonised by the Spanish following the arrival of Columbus in 1492. In the 1600s European powers struggled to control the country. After two wars of independence the Cubans won their freedom from the Spanish in 1899, only to be ruled for another 60 years by governments in the thrall of the U.S.A.
Independence from the US was finally won in the late fifties after more than two years of fighting between the Batista regime and revolutionary forces led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. US hostility to the new order culminated with the implementation of an economic embargo. This left Cuba getting all its support from the Soviet bloc, and by the mid sixties communism was taken on as the official ideology. With this political concordance came also the reliance on Soviet technical support and guidance.
By the mid eighties criticism of the way the Revolution was developing and reached a level that the government declared the need for an Era of Rectification. This involved a number of measures designed to answer popular discontent and to assert a more indigenous path of development. Bureaucracy was cut back, and a new elected local government structure was created. Surplus labour was directed into the construction of new housing, hospitals and schools. Some state farms were broken up into a number of workers co-operatives.
When the Soviet bloc crumbled in 1989 Cuba's economy was thrown into crisis. The markets for their exports and the hard currency for imports, disappeared as former Soviet bloc countries realigned their economies to join the capitalist system. The supplies of spare parts, of fuel, medicines and agricultural chemicals all diminished drastically. It was assumed that Cuba would follow the Soviet bloc: an economic and political collapse followed by an acquiescence to capitalism.
The U.S. responded to these events by tightening the blockade, hoping to speed up the 'inevitable' collapse of the communist government. The Cuban government declared this crisis the "Special Period (in Peacetime)" and implemented a continuing series of economic reforms including the redirection of its trade towards the world market, major development of tourism, and the legalisation of small scale private enterprise.
Ten years later and Cuba remains independent and communist. Tourism is flourishing and has even overtaken sugar exports as the mainstay of the Cuban economy.
